Coco, her memory disorders and the power of music

Abstract

Coco is a 2017 Disney Pixar film inspired by the traditional mexican Day of the Dead festival, which revolves around Miguel’s adventure in search of his ancestors and guided by his love for music. During his journey he discovers that, since her great-grandmother, Coco, has memory problems, her father will be forgotten forever. Upon his return, Miguel plays for her the song Remember me, with a surprising improvement of the protagonist’s memory in a transitory way. The authors draw attention on the influence of music on Mamá Coco’s memory and, from a neuropsychiatric point of view, it raises the concern about the diagnosis that this character could have under the evaluation of the DSM-5. We review the concept of the power of music proposed by Oliver Sacks fifteen years ago and the current evidence of the influence of such art on patients with dementia.

Keywords

• alzheimer disease
• dementia
• memory
• music